Fairy Tale Endings
by Farfalle Rossa
Summary: They aren’t the sort of people that get fairy tale endings naturally, but they might be able to make one for themselves. [Bellatrix x Rodolphus]


_Author's Note: I don't own anything._

_Summary: They aren't the sort of people that get fairy tale endings naturally, but they might be able to make one for themselves. Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange._

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They'd never thought of what they have as love. Lust and admiration for each other, definitely. They had always fitted together perfectly, a match that none could ever have disputed as right. Their families boasted of it to their friends, saying how wonderful it was that these two powerful children (for although they were adults, their families always thought of them as children) could make such a lovely marriage without any influence from their families, how they could love each other. But love was not something that Bellatrix Black (and then Bellatrix Lestrange) and Rodolphus Lestrange ever thought of as real, and even though they could have gotten a happy ending several times, they knew the only people that ever get fairy tale endings are those in love.

And even though they wouldn't ever have admitted it, they wanted a fairy tale ending. They wanted to walk off happily together, hand in hand, the love that they didn't believe existed shining from their eyes as they looked at each other. It was a sappy picture, they told each other. They didn't have any need for such a ridiculous thing, because they were above that. The only people that loved were those beneath them, the ones that they killed. The people that loved would throw themselves melodramatically before the other, sacrificing themselves so that the one they loved would live. It was the substance of myths, not reality, they thought.

But secretly, that was all they have ever wanted with each other. It was the attraction that pulled them together, the time when they first saw each other and knew instinctively that what they would have would be world-changing. And it would never be said, it would hardly ever be thought, but it would be there. And it would always be there, lying between the words they said to each other, both harsh and comforting, passionate and detached. It would be in the actions they did without thinking, like Rodolphus brushing her hair out of her eyes when she slept, and Bellatrix rubbing his back when he dreamed and she was awake.

They could have made an ending like the one they thought they despised, when they first got married. But they were young then, and didn't think that their happiness would be cut short when they both would be sent to a hell far worse than they ever imagined. They didn't know how much more they would long for a happy ending when they were behind bars, away from each other.

There was a second opportunity, one often overlooked. They could have made one, or tried to, when they escaped. But they were preoccupied with revenge then, wanting to hurt the people that had imprisoned them, the people that didn't care that they were wasting away in the worst place in the world. They didn't think of anything but that, hardly. And then it was too late, when he was sent back to Azkaban, and she was alone in the cruel world that seemed to detest her so much. Her life had been so charmed when she was young, and she wished that it could be like that now.

But they were the people that learned from their mistakes. When he escaped again, two years after he was imprisoned for the second time, they saw each other. And although love was never said, never mentioned, three words hung underneath the other words they said when they saw each other again, and things finally changed.

There were so many things they wanted to say when they slept together that night. _I love you. You're perfect. I've missed you. _All sentences that seemed so out of place in a marriage like theirs, and yet so honest and right. And one, one that was all those things but one that they had thought the most impossible: _Maybe we can have the ending that the storybooks say is so wonderful._

But of course they didn't say them, because they hadn't changed _that_ much. But such things don't need to be said, not when people know each other so well. Things like that could be read from everything that they did, because for them, they read actions like they couldn't read words. They were blissfully ignorant of the underlying meaning between sentences like _You're beautiful_ or_ You're wonderful_, but they could see the love coming through when they kissed each other.

Three times they'd had the chance to make a happy ending. And for the first itme, this time, they were going to try. They knew they might not succeed – it was hard for them to concentrate on being happy when much of the world was against them – but they needed to try.

And maybe, they thought, if they did, the world would look more kindly on them.

And if that happened, maybe a happy ending could come about.


End file.
